Mary Anning finds the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton

In 1811 and 1812 Joseph Anning found a large skull on the cliffs near Lyme Regis on the coast of Dorset, England, and his twelve-year-old sister Mary found the rest of the skeleton of the creature, an ichthyosaur, a dolphin-like marine reptile of the Jurassic. The Annings, a poor carpenter's family, sold fossils to collectors to make a living. Mary later found the first complete plesiosaur in 1823 and the first British pterosaur in 1828. Her finds convinced scientists that animals had gone extinct. Though men of science took credit, and she was not allowed to join the Geological Society, her discoveries were crucial to early palaeontology.

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